A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 1 of 36 1. TEN YEARS ON NARRATOR 1 At the end of 1976, the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, whose centres are known as FWBOs, gave a series of talks at the Brighton Pavilion. He presented a dynamic vision of spiritual growth: an individual who has an urge to grow is able to engage with other individuals in a way that would inspire the creation of a radical and new society. SANGHARAKSHITA It is very nearly ten years since I decided to return to England and start a new Buddhist movement and, for me, these years have been, in a way, quite difficult ones. But also very, very interesting but also, I may say, very, very happy. I think I can say: the very happiest years of my life and the most most worthwhile. And I think I can say also that I have succeeded in doing what I set out to do. The Order is now established on a firm foundation. A number of FWBOs are functioning. At the same time, much remains to be done. We have made a good beginning but it’s only a beginning. And I can only hope that as the years go by, as the months go by, more and more people will come foreward and cooperate with me, with the Order, with the Friends in creating on an ever larger and larger scale, ever more effective scale, the nucleus of a new society. A Circle of Friends [East-West Centre, London April 6, 1977] SUBHUTI I am going to give a speech in praise. I am going to be quite unashamed about it, quite unabashed about it, in fact, even maybe a little bit unbalanced about it … NARRATOR 2 A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 2 of 36 On the FWBO’s tenth birthday Subhuti delivered an eulogy. There was a lot to celebrate, as it was a time of energy and idealism. It was also a time of difficulty. The movement, particularly in London, was increasingly defined in single sex terms, and this had been painful. A group of men converting an old fire station into a Buddhist centre were struggling with poverty. Meanwhile, the women looking in vain for two years for a place to call their own, were more hopeful. [The History of the FWBO Part Four: 1977-1979] ALAYA A lot of the stuff we were buying was second-hand. We bought it from Bobby who'd come round every other day, I think. Bits of wood, windows all kinds of things like that, and he would always convince us that it wasn't stolen property. We seemed to be continually having crisis council meetings where we were just about to run out of money and Lokamitra, who was doing a really good job up in Pundarika fund-raising, he'd get a bit more to us and we just keep going every few weeks. NARRATOR 3 Then the funds dried up: building work stopped and the community went out to work. SUBHUTI For nearly a year, I think it might have been more than a year, we were just doing building work outside. We were getting hardly any work done on our own building. MUSIC: Cartoon SUBHUTI We probably came out at the end of that year having just having supported everybody and bought a few tools. I felt that I had led all these people and the movement A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 3 of 36 to some extent, into a bit of a dead end. It just seemed impossible to do what we had set out to do and all we were doing was standing still. 2. AMARAVATI COMMUNITY DHAMMADINNA We came back and found an eviction notice pinned to the door of the house saying, I think it might have been a week or something or it might have been less than that that we had to move. NARRATOR 4 Just before bulldozers demolished their North London homes, the women were offered a seventeen room house. It was gutted, had been empty for three years and was a long way from the area they knew, but they took the plunge. [Wanstead, East London Amaravati July 1977] DHAMMADINNA There was a pipe coming through in the basement with a bit of water and that was the extent of the plumbing and an outside cold shower and an outside toilet that worked and the rest of the place was burnt out in the basement, burnt out on the first floor and less burnt out as it went upstairs, no windows, luckily it was June and it was hot so we camped out in the garden. PADMAVASINI So we'd get up and mediate and have breakfast, and the just set to organise ourselves. It was just a matter of like breakfast, tea break, lunch tea break, yoga practice, supper and in between we worked away getting the place inhabitable. DHAMMADINNA A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 4 of 36 I mean, that was the main thrust of the work was just to work and get it together. NARRATOR 5 Now the challenge facing the eleven women was to build a spiritual community. Apart from experience drawn from retreats, there were no adequate models, either Eastern or Western, to go on. Besides, their teacher was a man. The community, consisting of three or four Order members, who had some commitment and clarity, and double that number of mitras, who were developing those qualities, needed an identity. DHAMMADINNA We wanted to have a large community with a focus on the community life itself, and we decided it was going to be a closed community, no men on the premises, so we could explore what it meant to live together more in that sort of situation as we were...we were trying to find our identity as women Order members and Mitras as well as women perhaps. [Seventies newsreel: feminist demonstrations] COMMENTATOR Officially the had gained equal pay. Now they wanted to be accepted by men and society on their own terms.' NARRATOR 6 In spiritual terms, there were equal opportunities in the FWBO, and this was in accord with the Buddha’s own teaching not because the movement had begun in the West. Even so, changes in society together with the message of feminist writers such as Kate Millet could not be ignored. However, it was women’s biographies, such as Anais Nin’s, which rang a chord with Buddhists.… Another book, by a Jungian A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 5 of 36 psychoanalyst, was helpful in exploring the subconscious drives. PADMAVASINI Esther Harding was very accessible and there is so much more now that is written in a very clear way to relate to. But then things were quite deep. I mean Jungian and that sort of stuff was very deep. And she clearly spelt out the kind of roles that women were prone to fall into, which was quite refreshing to have them defined so we could relate to it and decide what we wanted to stay out of. DHAMMADINNA She talks about two sorts of initiations moving beyond the kind of sexual, being a sexual being for men and all that and then also but the other level of initiation she talks about is… being conscious of the, you know, unconscious motherly tendencies…you know, women tend to mother each other in the wrong sort of way sometimes. ANOMA It was the first real focus for women, I think, in the movement and even people who didn't live there, we had a lot of visitors from different countries coming and staying. We had the first women's Order/Mitra events there, working retreats. NARRATOR 7 It could be hectic playing host to all the women visiting the community, which was called Amaravati.…At other times, they had the pleasure to entertain their one gentleman caller. PADMAVASINI You always remember Bhante's presence and notice how much more the colours are brighter the next day when he is gone. The whole atmosphere is lifted and it is really lovely seeing him. A Circle of Friends!!!!Page 6 of 36 ANOMA Bhante said, with Amaravati, how many women had written to him and said how important it was just to go to a women's situation like that. So for all its shortcomings they still experienced it positively. (MUSIC) 3. MANDARAVA RETREAT CENTRE NARRATOR 8 Despite Mandarava's freezing shrine room, retreats at the women’s retreat centre were life savers for the London communities. PADMAVASINI Mandarava was a very nice place and it was very nice to be out of Amaravati. NARRATOR 8A A woman from Manjuvajra's class in Cornwall, keen to be a mitra, wanted to get first hand knowledge of the women’s wing and so booked herself on retreat. PADMASURI My experience of it was one of claustrophobia. It was a lot of women getting together, sort of very intense communication, intense in the sense of a bit cloying, that was my experience of it. And there was this other woman, I think she was a Mitra, on the retreat and she and I used to go off for these long walks in the afternoons when we had free time, sort of go off and say, ‘Phew, thank goodness we're out of that.' NARRATOR 9 The honeymoon period was over and she did not now want to be a mitra. The honeymoon was over, too, for the one Order member left running Mandarava after three founder members moved away.